


you better believe it.

by emkayss



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, it's reis birthday!, reigisa week 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:59:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3228404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emkayss/pseuds/emkayss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nagisa and the kids throw Rei a birthday party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you better believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally started this in november for Rei's birthday......... I finished it twenty minutes ago. How's that for being uninspired! Whatevs. Again, this is un-betaed so feel free to let me know where I messed up, and enjoy this uber-fluffy end to reigisa week! :)

On Rei’s fourty-ninth birthday he wakes up to what he usually wakes up to: yelling. It was something you got used to, when you’re married to Nagisa and you have two teenaged children, all of whom need to get somewhere before nine in the morning. 

Rei doesn’t need to get up quite yet though. Nagisa practically forced him to take the day off, with the allure of some kind of surprise waiting. Rei doesn’t know whether he should be excited or worried.

“Dad?” Kiyomi’s voice is quiet and far away, probably in the kitchen, and Rei hopes she’s not talking to him, because it’s his birthday and he kind of wants to lay around for a little longer, and because it hurts in his knees when he first gets out of bed. And because if there’s anything he’s learned from living with Nagisa for almost thirty years, (Thirty years? Rei can’t believe that. His first swim practice still feels like yesterday) it’s that he can take his time getting out of bed once in a while.  

“Yeah, honey?” Nagisa’s voice is soft and distant, filtered in from the kitchen with the smell of breakfast, something he’d actually learned he was good at when it mattered years before, in a tiny apartment in Tokyo a train ride away from Rei’s university.   

“No, the other one.”  

“He’s in bed. Can you get him up? He needs to sign this before I leave.” Rei listens to footsteps echoing up the hallway to his and Nagisa’s room.

“Yeah.” A yawn, sounding like it was just outside the door. “Yeah, sure.” Rei pushes himself up onto his elbows just as Kiyomi slides the door open.

He rubs the sleep from his eyes, and scoots over to make room for Kiyomi when she crawls into his and Nagisa’s bed. Kiyomi’s already in her uniform for school, but her socks are only halfway pulled up her calves, and Rei knows her blazer lies over the back of a chair somewhere. Rei wraps his arm around her when she climbs and nestles herself into his side, and Rei reaches to pull some of the covers up and over her. 

“Hey, dad.” Kiyomi snuggles closer, and Rei presses a kiss to her forehead. 

“Good morning, Kiyomi. Do you know what your father’s planning for me? I’m a little worried.” 

“Come on, you know I can’t tell you, but you’ve got to get up, dad wants to you to sign something for him. It’s probably for the AC.” She yawns again, leaning up and over Rei to grab something on the bedside table. Rei watches as she settles back into the pillows, his red glasses perched and crooked on her nose. She scrunches up her nose, and her eyebrows furrowed a bit in mock concentration.

“You think I forgot, didn’t you?” She asks, in her best haughty-Rei impression. 

“What? No!” Rei said, scrambling for words and trying not to do his weird laugh that he’s learned does nothing to convince people otherwise, and sounds more like a bark. 

“Well, I didn’t.” Kiyomi says, giving Rei a kiss on the cheek and snuggling down into his arms, like she used to do when she was six and scared of something, fourteen and had a bad day at school, four and falling asleep with her dads in their warm bed.Seventeen and tucked into her dad’s side, her uniform shirt twisting around her middle and hair falling out of its ponytail. “Happy birthday, dad.”  

Rei smiles and kisses his daughter’s cheek. “Thank you, Kiyomi.” 

“No problem,” she says, grinning at him. 

_“Kiyo-chan! You’re going to be late!”_

Kiyomi sighs and sends Rei a _can you seriously believe this guy_ look, and started to climb out of the covers. “Guess that’s my cue.” 

Rei nods grimly, but picks his glasses up from where Kiyomi had left them and slides out of bed, tugging his housecoat off of the hook beside the door and putting on his slippers before following her out the door. 

The hallway’s quiet, the only sounds his and Kiyomi’s footsteps creaking on the wooden floor, and the clinking and hissing from the kitchen. All sound goes quiet, suddenly, and Rei notices, he notices and slows down, wondering _what in God’s name has Nagisa done now?_ But Kiyomi continues without a hitch and so Rei follows her, and there’s no one in the kitchen until Nagisa and Minato spring up from behind the counter and Kiyomi slides into view again, their arms flailing in the air and they’re yelling “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” in vague unison. There’s plates and plates of breakfast food on the kitchen table, steaming and hot, and Rei has no idea where the rest of his family got the time to cook all this food.

Nagisa slides up to him and places a party hat on Rei’s head, and pulls the string under his chin before leaning into him, twining their fingers together and grinning at Rei. “Happy birthday, Rei.”  

Rei’s smiling, there’s no way he can’t smile, and he bounces forward onto the balls of his feet. He doesn’t know what to say. So he says what he knows: “All of you are going to be late.” 

“Dad and Kiyo and I all got up early to cook all the food, and Kiyo and I have already eaten our share, so we’re just here to say happy birthday and then we’ve gotta bolt.” Minato’s already shrugging on his jacket and motioning to Kiyomi to collect her blazer from wherever she dumped it. He starts to make his way to the entrance to the hallway, probably to grab something from his room, and just as he passes Rei and Nagisa, Nagisa grabs him and pulls him into a hug. 

“You’ve got a few minutes, Minato.” 

Minato huffs half-heartedly; he’s fifteen and going through his “rebellious” phase, which isn’t exactly going as well as he’d planned. He’s always loved his parents, and Rei doesn’t think he has the guts to do anything that would get them mad at him. 

Kiyomi rolls her eyes, grinning, and comes to join the hug. They all fit together, just like they should, a rag-tag team of Hazuki-Ryugazakis. The kids extricate themselves when Rei shooes them away, because Nagisa may have been misinformed when he said they had a few minutes. Kiyomi slides on her blazer, grabs her bag and Minato’s bento that he forgot in his rush, and blows a kiss to Rei on her way out. Rei can here Minato yelling, “Hurry, Kiyo-chan! We’ve got to go NOW!” from somewhere outside. Rei blows her a kiss back. 

The door closes, and Nagisa tightens his hold on Rei. 

“Shouldn’t you be heading out too?” Rei asks, trying to loosen Nagisa’s grip. 

“Usually, yes, but I took the day off. I wanted to spend the day with you. And, you’re going to need someone to help eat all that food.” Nagisa laughs, and starts to pull Rei in the direction of the table. A laugh bubbles out of Rei, a lovesick giggle that he hasn’t been able to contain for years now, since Nagisa first kissed him, when he and Nagisa were finally able to get married, with a nine and seven year old in tow. When Rei first got to hold Kiyomi, a brand new baby that was _his_ , and Minato a few years later. 

He’s got this family that he’d never dreamt he’d get to have, and he loves it, he loves _them_ more than he thought he could love anything. _A rag-tag team of Hazuki-Ryugazakis._

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm also on [tumblr](emkayss.tumblr.com) btdubs.


End file.
